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Whats a good multi purpose laptop?
So I am looking at what laptop to get for college this fall. I've chosen to not take my desktop to college so I will need it to handel games. right now those include mostly old such as wow, orange box, DoW series, and older total war games. At most for new stuff itll be SC2. But I will also need this laptop to travel to my classes so not have the crappy battery life that some game capable laptops have. So for around $1500 what laptops can meet the middle of power and battery life?
Hold on Snow Leopard, imma let you finish, but Windows had one of the best operating systems of all time.
If the Powerball lottery was like Lotro, nobody would win for 2 years, and then everyone in Nebraska would win on the same day.
And then Nebraska would get nerfed.-pinkwood lotro fourms
AMD 4800 2.4ghz-3GB RAM 533mhz-EVGA 9500GT 512mb-320gb HD
Comments
With the current leaniencies companies have been taking with power envelopes, its tough to find one that can play games decently while having a battery life greater then 90 minutes.
After a bit of searching, I have narrowed down my search to video cards with an ATI Mobility HD5730 or better, and had the best battery life. I think I found 2 good options to meet your demands in order to play games yet have something that has a decent battery life while being in your price range. But both of them aren't released yet.
There is the ASUS G73JH variant with a Core i5 that has a 2 and a half hour battery life idle, 1 hour batter life under full load. Compared to the Core i7 variant thats half an hour more at idle and load. It should be priced around $1300.
Then there is the ACER ASPIRE 8943G with an HD5850 and Core i7. 4 hours battery life idle and 1 hour battery life under full load. This one is probably your best bet once its available.
From whats released now I would be looking at HD5730 models using a Core i5 to get one within a good power envelope. Or if you don't mind 50 minutes under load, there is the MSI GX740-079US, and the ASUS G73JH Core i7 variants around $1500.
Try an MSI GE600. It's not as powerful as what you could get for $1500 by any means, but with a Core I5 430M and a Mobility Radeon HD 5730, it'll play games without trouble, and it gets decent battery life. Newegg reviews report about 4 hours (supposedly it has an integrated GPU as well as the dedicated one to boost battery life, but I can't reasonably confirm it; MSI's product page says it's there one on page, and doesn't mention it on the tech specs).
The mobile 5730 is also pretty powerful. My Asus N61jq has one, and I can play COD MW2 maxed out without too much issue (though I like to knock the AA down from 4 to 2; it's alright on both, but a hair smoother with the slight reduction). Crysis runs on high for with most settings, and even a little AA and still remains very playable (see here). Grants, both the MSI GE600 and my Asus N61 have a panel resolution of only 1366x768, but considering how pressed laptops are for power, it's actually a blessing often in gaming.
I'd avoid getting my model just because you need the additional battery life that a Core I7 would deprive you of, but at only $899, it's hard to argue with MSI's computer here. If you wanted something with more power, you could always go for the ~1300 MSI GX640, which comes equipped with a Radeon HD 5850, and a nicer 1680x1050 resolution screen (which basically counteracts any higher framerate from the more powerful GPU, and then some, incidentally). You'll also lose 90 minutes to two hours of battery life going from the GE600 to the GX640.
If battery life is really your thing, you can always shoot for an Apple, but you'll be paying a premium to get otherwise sub-par hardware (A Core2Duo and Geforce GT320M is a pretty sorry hardware setup at the $1500 price point), and just so you can get a nice battery and an OS that sticks the start menu at the top instead of the bottom.
Game laptops have crappy battery life because they are runing a game! There is no laptop I know of that can play a newer type game with heavy graphics or lots going on screen and have better then 2 maybe 3hrs battery life, so without a game runing the battery life for normal cumputing and stuff is mostly 6hrs to 8hrs, you can get higher on APPLE but you wont be able to game on APPLE.
So I suggest by that you wont be gaming in class so battery life should not factor in on your decision here. I would look at newegg.com for laptops and make a decision off reviews there and off the net.
If you get a Tier 1 grade notebook graphics card, you should not expect it to last more then 2 hours idle. This is pretty much any graphics card with an 8 or 9 as its 2nd digit. A 6 or above for nVidia.
I thought that the card just sucked power on its own weather or not it was playing a game.
Hold on Snow Leopard, imma let you finish, but Windows had one of the best operating systems of all time.
If the Powerball lottery was like Lotro, nobody would win for 2 years, and then everyone in Nebraska would win on the same day.
And then Nebraska would get nerfed.-pinkwood lotro fourms
AMD 4800 2.4ghz-3GB RAM 533mhz-EVGA 9500GT 512mb-320gb HD
I just bought this yesterday:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i5+Processor+-+Blue/Black/9736955.p;jsessionid=CA8233A90CD2BCC82250512A95047739.bbolsp-app03-56?id=1218164036446&skuId=9736955
i5 2.26GHz speedboost to 2.53GHz
4GB DDR3
500GB 7,200 RPM HDD
GTS 360M
Only cost 900 bucks and runs Crysis on high settings. I've been toying with it since yesterday and so far I can run every game I've tried at high end settings. The only downer is the monitor is only 1366 x 768 but that wasn't enough of a downer for me to pass up this much hardware at such a low price.
For your power concerns, this thing gets 1 - 1 1/2 in performance mode and 2 - 2 1/2 hours in battery saving mode.
Also, this thing has an amazing keyboard for a laptop. Number pad, nice, responsive keys and a backlit option if you're playing in the dark.
10.6.1
2GB ati 5850 hoocked up to laptop
it bumped 3DMark06 score from a 1,720 on integrated graphics to a 12,765 (compare to world record desktop marks Gigabyte hd 5870 soc 3DMark06 @ 46,920)
diy vidock guide and walkthrough
Yeah, I considered that approach for a laptop myself, Bhug. Of course, I was going to use the Vidock2, as it seems like a much simpler solution than your setup.
I decided against it myself, but it's an interesting notion.